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All posts for the month December, 2012

Clever name and a nice idea. A possibly useful app just hamstrung by a lack of needed features and propensity to disappear.

Deal Inn – main screen

It is a very simple app doing a search right away based on your location, if you allowed it. The purpose of the app is to find deals on services in your area from Automotive to Yoga. You can choose how many miles away and enter in a zip code. If you don’t care to use the map you can even get rid of it. Initially the app only shows 10 matches. I’m not sure why it is so limited but you can change it, just not on the main screen.

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Here is an app that drew my attention because of the idea of building a story. Kids often like to tell stories, so why not an app to help them do it? I thought originally it was for creating bedtime stories but it puts the child in the story and/or has the child make the story.

Kids Story Builder – main screen

The main page is purple which I find strange since the rest of the app is black, but never-the-less it is a welcoming first screen. You get two sample stories to give you an idea on the intended use. You can create stories using stored photos, live photos, text and/or voice.

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I’ll be the first to admit I am not an avid user of Twitter. Others evidently feel differently due to its continued popularity and several Windows 8 apps available for it. I’ve looked at my share, Rowi, Metrotwit and Tweetro for example. They each offer good features, but some like Tweetro charge for use. This one charges as well but I think it brings a lot more to the table.

Tweetwerks – main screen

It is a quite typical view with columns when you set it up. The columns shown are the default but you can add more and you can delete the last two on the right. You can scroll through the tweets/mentions/retweets column but the other columns seem fixed. I’d like to be able to scroll down or click on “recent images” to see more but I can’t. You can add your own columns and in there can click on the title and view more of those tweets. I’m not sure what the little ‘greater than’ symbol is supposed to represent since it appeared on the column I created as well (I though it would indicate, click to see more).

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This a quick look at an app that is meant to be snapped, SnapGadgets for Windows. While the addition of “for Windows’ seems unnecessary, the app provides some simple tools that make perfect use of the snap feature of Windows 8.

SnapGadgets for Windows – snapped

Above it is snapped with the Windows Store. You get two clocks, a calendar, calculator and a notepad. You can turn on or off each gadget with the little icons at the bottom left. The notepad will expand when you turn off the other elements but turn off the notepad and you are left with a blank space. It would be nice if the calculator expanded to give a running tally perhaps or went to scientific mode when you removed the notepad. Or another possibility is to provide a way for it to link with the Calendar app to provide today’s appointments.

SnapGadgets for Windows – settings

In the settings you can adjust when each of the elements is on or off, what size the clock is and whether you have a second clock. You may also choose the timezone of the second clock, however I wish it were more user-friendly. Perhaps in other parts of the world they refer to UTC time more, but in the USA anyway we rarely know what time is here compared to GMT (Greenwich mean time). I would prefer the time zones be named. The live tile doubles as a calendar widget showing the current date. It would be nice if this was controllable as well to show the instead (or both), for example.

Summary

Considering this is a first version it is a nice start. The graphics are ok, but rather bland and the options could be boosted. It has an option to remove ads but I didn’t see any to be removed. Still the developers are on track to create an app that can fit many needs. They could add more gadgets as well like weather, media controller (for music) and score updater for sports. Just a few ideas I had and hope are added to something like this. Initially I hadn’t thought of snap being used in this way, but it makes perfect sense.

Rating

Category: Tools

Download size: 614 KB

Publisher: SnapGadgetForWindows

Price: free ($1.49 to remove ads)

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You know how some things as you are browsing, catch your eye, well this app did that. Things that catch your eye, sometimes turn out to be a mirage. We’re about to find out if Smart Music is real or a mirage.

Smart Music – main screen

Smart Music is an app to play music based on your mood. I think that is a great idea. As you can see music is separated on the main screen by what category it falls into. I’m not sure who decided which category each belongs in, but ok I can live with the choices. The music seems to be primarily recent pop in the limited songs that are available. I’m don’t object personally (except for any rap) but it gives an indication that this is only the beginning (hopefully) of this app and there is more to come in the future. The app does provide semantic view for quickly jumping to a mood.

Smart Music – choose your mood

So if you have more specific needs than only Happy, Sad or Crazy, you can choose your mood. I did a test. I chose Happy, Sunny and Morning and “Owl Eyes” was the first choice with 12 songs. Next I chose Happy, Sunny, Evening and “Owl Eyes” appeared in the list in 4th position, but when I re-ran it with same choices it was 3rd! It seems the choices are more or less random based on the first choice.

Smart Music – mood results

Above is the results of just clicking on the InLove choice from the main screen. If you use the “chooser” then you will get some different albums in perhaps a different order. When I clicked InLove for this screenshot, Celine Dion was first, a perfectly understandable choice for many (unless you can’t stand her music then it isn’t a choice you’d make). However now I do it and Leona Lewis is first. Clearly no science involved here. How is it to play music, that is what you really want to know.

Smart Music – play screen

You have the choice to only play albums. There are no playlists. Some albums choices may not have the full album. In fact one choice I looked at for Kelly Clarkson’s Breakaway was empty and another of hers was just one song. While I might like an album, if you want mood music, most often you prefer to listen to random songs of that mood. I think right there you have a severe knock against the app.

The controls are ok, where you have play/pause, a progress bar and volume controls. It also provides forward and back for going through the song list, but to me they look like fast forward and rewind buttons (because of the double arrow). The control buttons are too tiny at least compared to most Windows 8 apps. You can also access a song list by clicking on that text button under the song info. It brings up a list with just titles, no other information. The only way to return to the single song view was to choose a song. What if I just wanted to see the songs, not start my song over? Too bad.

Charms

Search – there is no search possible. Share – this is where it gets into dangerous territory. First it has a Facebook and Mail icon on the song playing screen but either one does the same thing (they are also too small). You can share to more than just those two things which makes it even clearer there should be either one icon or preferably NO icon. The dangerous thing is you can use Share to get the location of the music to download it. Simply copy the link that appears into a browser and get that song, free. I’m not trying to promote theft, but should be fixed immediately. Settings – no settings exist.

Snap

This mode is not supported.

Tile

A small tile only that does not support a live tile.

Summary

I really wanted to like this app and judging by reviews so far, others really like it. They might be liking it so much because of the ability to get free music. The app concept is nice, but the execution leaves something to be desired. It crashed on me several times while trying to use it (in the background it occurred). It will not continue to play music in the background. The music selection is poor and you cannot create playlists or randomize the song choices. A nice add-on would be some way to incorporate your own music to tag it for inclusion. It is the first version, so that should indicate improvements to come. As for now, the app turned out to be a mirage.

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ALSee is a photo editor, and there are already quite a few available for Windows 8, including one I reviewed a few days ago. I just thought I’d look at this one since it has a unique style.

ALSee – main screen

This app takes friendly approach in its design. It starts out with two choices and shows your current gallery (images you’ve edited before). It isn’t imposing and allows you to get down to business quickly.

ALSee – graphic tools

Apologies to my daughter for drawing on her face. The app though provides a unique divided view. It looks very much like the bar for snapped view but it isn’t snapped. You can adjust it from being in the middle to more to the right, but not to the left. I really enjoy the live thumbnails that preview that effect. It shows the original photo devoid of any other effects. As you can see above, some choices allow more specific changes. You can easily scroll through the list when in this view, but if you prefer you can view things with a more full screen view.

ALSee – wider view

While the wider view affords you a better view for some images about the changes you will be making, it is more difficult to switch effects. You’ll have to go back and choose the next one you want, there is no way to switch them in this view. If you right-click you do get options here and on the other view to un-do, re-do, revert to original and save. I like the bigger thumbnail in the lower right as you try out an effect before applying.

ALSee – text options

A couple of options present that many editors do not provide is the ability to add text and graphics. You saw the graphics on a previous screenshot and there are over 50 graphical elements you can add and re-size. Included is the ability to add text boxes or simply text to your image. Nice to see a tool like free-hand drawing included as well. The final graphical element provided is the border. A good variety of choices though as with anything you might wish for more. The effect section provides semantic view so you can easily jump to another section without scrolling too much.

Charms

Search – nothing to search in an app like this. Share – it shares with the expected apps like MINE (Facebook), Mail, Twitter (MetroTwit for me) but oddly not the People app. It also will share with Skydrive and strangely with itself! Devices – too bad it doesn’t find my printer, would seem like a use for a photo app. Settings – there are no settings provided.

ALSee – snapped

Snap

As shown above it works quite well in snapped view, at least as far as fitting the controls in there. However the preview image is overlapping the current image too much making it difficult to tell the difference. You can do almost anything in this view, but many things are just too tiny to complete properly (i.e. crop, add graphics) so I wouldn’t recommend it for most editing.

Tile

The live tile will flip through the recent images you have been editing (from the gallery on the first page). The funny-looking character icon for the app appears on the tile, easy to tell which app it is.

Summary

I like the style of this app. It is fun to use and provides quite a few options. It has a unique view to divide up the screen for the effects and the image but you aren’t stuck in that view. Each effect provides a good amount of control to fine tune what you want. It may not be as “professional” in its appearance but it can do a professional looking job (aside from some of the cutesy graphics). You can save images in 5 formats, png, jpg, tif, gif and bmp; so a little more variety there than some apps but about on par. I like Fotor a lot, but this is more than an acceptable alternative if you prefer a different style.

Rating

Category: Photo

Download size: 21.1 MB

Age:12+

Publisher: ESTsoft

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Love electronics but want to be sure you are getting the best buy? #myshopper can help you find the products you want or research them first using BestBuy.com resources. It is essentially a Best Buy app, but not created by them. There are other apps that include access to Best Buy, but this is the only one I have seen that provides a Modern UI view. The rests are basically a webpage inside the app.

#myshopper – main screen

The initial screen is fairly clean and highlights the recent best sellers. If you browse the app and go back to the home page this first section updates regularly. It is interesting to see what others are buying, but not sure if it helps me with my decision (I go against the grain). Perhaps as you use it more to make purchases it will suggest items you might be interested in, I don’t think the app does, but would be nice. Usually though I know exactly what I’m interested in.